


The Banshee

by interlude



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Bill's emotional manipulation and general bs, Gen, There is no comfort here, taking some liberty with banshee lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29326221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interlude/pseuds/interlude
Summary: On the evening of January 2, 1982, a banshee takes up post on the property line of 618 Gopher Road.--(Written for Forduary 2021 Week 2: Fluff and Angst)
Relationships: Bill Cipher & Ford Pines, Ford Pines & Stan Pines
Comments: 10
Kudos: 46





	The Banshee

On the evening of January 2, 1982, a banshee takes up post on the property line of 618 Gopher Road.

Ford knows it’s a banshee both from her incessant wailing and because there’s a helpfully descriptive entry in his battered, coffee-stained, and frequently dog-eared copy of _International_ _Legends and Folklore_ , a prized possession he’s carried close with him ever since first receiving it as a birthday gift during his sophomore year of high school. The book remains precious despite how stubbornly he’s tried to forget the gifter, going as far as to scribble out the note penned inside the front cover until only the S and the Y remain even slightly legible. Even now, he tries not to glance at those lingering specters as he skims the index.

According to the book, there are two possible reasons a banshee could be stationed outside of his house: she’s either lamenting the recent death of a family member or attempting to warn him off a disastrous and likely fatal path. However, since he has received no frantic phone call from his mother, he highly doubts it’s the former, and as he doesn’t believe himself to be pursuing anything particularly life-threatening at the moment, aside from the occasionally deadly anomaly, he also doubts it’s the latter. 

So, on the second night of the banshee’s awful keening, Ford decides to ask her. 

She’s changed her form since she first appeared, no longer a short, wrinkled old woman wrapped in a shroud but a young woman with long, silver hair and extremely pale skin who would likely stand at least a foot taller than him when not hunched over in grief. He clears his throat to announce his presence, but the banshee simply carries on crying. 

“Hello,” he says awkwardly. “My name is Stanford Pines, although seeing as you’re at my house, I’m assuming you already knew that.”

She wails louder. 

“I was just wondering,” he says, speaking louder to be heard over the noise, “if you could inform me of the reason for your visit? I’m aware, of course, that you’re a death omen. I’m just not quite sure what you’re supposed to be an omen of in this current scenario.”

The banshee grabs her long hair and tears at it. Instead of answering, she looks him directly in the eye and wails again, louder than before. Ford flinches at the sound. Her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy from crying; they stand out starkly against her unnaturally pale skin, giving her a rather gruesome and unnerving appearance. The longer he stares at her, the more he feels a sense of great impending doom creeping up his spine, raising goosebumps along his chilled skin and making the hairs along his arms stand on end. It’s as if his body has clued into some terrible tragedy before his mind has, and it settles like a weight upon his chest.

Without an answer and with slightly ringing ears, Ford returns to his house, shaking the feeling away best he can.

The banshee’s cries follow him through the door. 

It crosses his mind to give his mother a call, just to check that everyone is okay, but he dreads the resulting conversation almost more than the banshee standing outside. There have been far too many arguments with his family already, and he’s tired of wading through them constantly fearing a hidden undertow. He clings to the belief that if someone had died, he would have received a call already, and as he hasn’t, there is no reason to take on the added stress a phone call home would bring.

And if the banshee is actually here for him, she’s wasting both of their time. Ford is perfectly aware that his work can be dangerous, but he has no intention of stopping it, death omen or not. 

Luckily, he can hardly even hear her from the basement.

* * *

When Fiddleford returns from visiting his family for the holidays a few days later, he’s not pleased with the banshee’s presence or with Ford’s lack of reaction.

“You said this thing’s a death omen?” he asks, holding his hands securely over his ears in an attempt to block out her wailing.

Ford nods. He pulls the curtain aside to check on her, but she hasn’t moved from her post, although she has transformed into an old woman again. “Yes. They often appear to announce the death of a family member, but as no one’s called to inform me of a death in the family, I’m ruling that possibility out. Although I suppose it could be a distant relative none of us are aware of, which would beg the question of why she feels the need to announce their death to me in the first place.”

“You haven’t called to check?” Fiddleford asks, aghast.

Ford brushes off his disapproval with easy practice. Fiddleford is a family man. He’s on good terms with all six siblings and still calls his parents every few weeks just to catch up. He calls Emma May and Tate nearly every day and carries pictures of all of them in his wallet, which he proudly shows to anyone willing to sit through several heartwarming anecdotes. He’s never been able to understand Ford’s strained relationship with his own family, just as Ford has never been able to understand the McGuckets’ easy camaraderie. The Pines household had certainly never felt so warm —at least not for nearly a decade.

“I assure you, they would call me if someone had died,” he insists and skillfully ignores the look he gets for that remark. 

Thankfully, Fiddleford drops it. “Well, what about you? Could it be here for you?”

“There’s no reason for it to be. We haven’t encountered a truly dangerous anomaly in weeks, and even when we do, I’m perfectly capable of dealing with it.”

Fiddleford scoffs. “You can’t outsmart death, Stanford. That’s not how it works. How are you not more worried about this?” He continues before Ford even has a chance to answer; which is a relief, as he wasn’t quite sure how he was going to. “What if it’s the portal?”

“The portal?” Ford repeats. “What do you mean the portal?”

“I’m saying the portal could be dangerous. Maybe if it might kill you, we should stop.”

“We can’t,” Ford says, quickly enough that Fiddleford looks startled. “We’re so close.”

“Are we? To be honest, aside from the mechanical side of it, I really can’t make heads or tails of what we’re doing. Which is why it might be dangerous. It don’t matter how smart we are, Stanford. Messing around with unfamiliar science of this magnitude is dangerous.”

“I’ll be extremely careful.” 

The truth is it doesn’t matter if the portal is dangerous, Ford’s not willing to give up on the invention that will put his name in the history books alongside Tesla and Einstein and prove himself to a world so ready to write him off. Furthermore, he’s not willing to disappoint Bill. A powerful, all-knowing being from another dimension gave him a chance to prove himself, and he’s not planning to throw away an honor like that for any reason, especially something as trivial as his own safety. 

Fiddleford’s frown wrinkles his face. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Ford softens. “Thank you for your concern, but I’m sure everything will be fine. I will be extra careful from now on, I promise.”

Fiddleford looks unconvinced, but he’s also known Ford long enough to realize that’s likely as good as he’s going to get. 

* * *

“You seem bothered by something today,” Bill says as he moves a piece on the board.

They’re playing mahjong tonight, because Ford was starting to grow tired of losing at chess and he’d expressed interest in learning the game. Unfortunately, he still can’t understand the rules. Bill’s moves don’t appear to follow any sort of pattern or logic, but he’s too embarrassed to ask him for an explanation. Instead he keeps moving pieces at random and hoping for the best.

“Is it because of that banshee screaming in your yard?” Bill asks, and Ford brightens at the topic. Of course. He should have just asked Bill about it when she first appeared.

“I can’t seem to figure out why she’s here. It can’t be a death in the family, because someone would have called to inform me by now.”

“Sounds logical,” Bill agrees, and Ford feels a weight he wasn’t aware he was even carrying fall away at the reassurance. 

“Exactly. But that means she must be here for me. And, well” — he slumps, the full realization that a death omen might be standing in his front yard announcing his oncoming demise hitting him very suddenly — “I suppose I’m a bit worried. Is she here for me? Fiddleford thinks the portal is dangerous.”

“Of course the portal’s dangerous,” Bill says easily. “Any human messing around with something that far above their understanding is tempting death!” Ford’s stomach drops into his feet. “But that banshee doesn’t realize I’m helping you, and I know what I’m doing. You really think I’m going to let my favorite human die?”

“Oh,” Ford says, warmth rushing through him at the praise. Of course Bill was looking out for him. He’d had nothing to worry about after all. “Oh, of course.”

“I’ll let you in on a secret, Sixer. Banshees are big ol’ worrywarts. They see a human screwing around with tears in dimensions and they freak out. But they don’t realize I’m keeping you safe.”

It’s a relief he hadn’t even realized he needed to hear. The tension drains out of him. He smiles as he plays his next piece. 

“I’m sorry, Bill. I shouldn’t have doubted you were looking out for me.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Bill agrees. “But I’ll forgive you. You’re my favorite human, after all.”

Ford’s smile grows. It’s nice hearing it repeated.

“Is there any way to make her leave?” he asks.

It’ll at least help smooth things out with Fiddleford. He can’t tell him about Bill’s assurances because it would force him to tell Fiddleford about Bill in the first place, and that’s something he’s not willing to do. As much as he cares for his friend, he treasures having the rare privilege of being the only human being in this century to know of Bill’s existence far too much to let him in on the secret.

“Don’t blame you for asking,” Bill says. “She sure is annoying, huh? She’ll probably leave once you finish the portal and she realizes you’re still kicking. Which I guess just means we need to finish it faster.”

“Ah,” Ford says, some of the stress trickling back in. “Right.” 

He refuses to admit it, but he’d already been feeling a little worn thin trying to match Bill’s current timeline. He can’t imagine how he could possibly work faster than he already is.

“And, hey, speaking of, I actually had an idea of how we could work faster,” Bill adds, as if he’s read Ford’s mind. 

It’s a relief to hear. Ford welcomes his suggestion, even if the thought of letting someone else pilot his body is more than a little unnerving. But perhaps he’s overthinking things and letting his own human insecurities get in the way of progress. 

Perhaps he should trust Bill more.

He’s the only one truly looking out for him, after all.

* * *

Despite Bill’s assurances that the banshee is nothing to worry about, he can’t stop thinking about his family. It’s possible, he supposes, that something  _ had _ happened and they had forgotten to call him. Perhaps in the midst of funeral arrangements and mourning, the thought of informing him had just slipped through the cracks. The banshee’s nightly cries slowly chip away at his calm, filling him slowly with dread, until he finds himself doing the one thing he really didn’t want to do. 

Ford has stared down a number of truly frightening and dangerous anomalies with very little fear. There’s no reason for him to feel so intimidated staring down his own telephone. Unfortunately, his body refuses to listen to such logic, and his heart keeps on racing. He takes a deep breath to steel himself, then dials his parents’ number before he can talk himself out of it. 

“Are you ready to part the veil with Madame Romanoff and learn visions of your future?”

Ford stifles a disappointed sigh. He’d been hoping his father would pick up; the conversation would have been easier.

“Hey, Ma.”

“Stanford, is that you?” Her voice grows tight with restrained anger. “Oh, are you still alive? I had wondered, since you hadn’t called us during Hanukkah. Or called to wish me a happy birthday two months ago. Or called at all for the last five months. Not that I’ve been keeping track,” she tacks on testily.

Ford kneads at the bridge of his nose as if doing so could chase away the stress headache forming. Barely a minute in and she was already laying the guilt trip on thick.

“Did I miss your birthday?” he asks, knowing perfectly well that he had. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d been so focused on the portal lately that everything else seemed unimportant in comparison, especially with Bill pushing him for a closer deadline nearly every week. “Ma, I’m so sorry. I just get wrapped up in my work and lose track of things. Happy Birthday.”

“Uh-huh.” She sounds utterly unimpressed. “You know, I didn’t put so much work into raising two beautiful twin boys just to lose both of them.”

And, as usual, there’s the allusion to Stanley. For all she tries to market herself as a mystifying and inconceivable psychic, she really is predictable.

“Well, that’s why I’m calling,” Ford says. “To ask how you’re doing.”

“You are?” 

She sounds pleasantly surprised. Some of the guilt manages to land. Perhaps he should get better at calling home more often, but it’s difficult when all his father wants to talk about is his disappointing lack of fortune and all his mother wants to talk about is his broken relationship with his brother. It seems like every time he talks with his family he’s forced to defend himself of some failing or another. 

“Of course,” he lies. “I realized I had gotten caught up in my work and let time pass by, and I wanted to give you a call. How are you and Pa?”

Judging from the rather boring stories of daily life back in Glass Shard Beach that his mother regales him with, no one in the family has died, not even any distant aunts and uncles. She even brings up Sherman and his family without him asking, excited to praise his nephew’s good grades. 

Which just leaves —

The only one she hasn’t mentioned is —

Ford tries to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat. It’s fine, he assures himself. It was foolish to doubt Bill, blasphemous even to think that an all-knowing being could be wrong. The banshee was here for Ford out of a misplaced sense of imminent danger. 

Stanley wasn’t  _ dead _ .

Wouldn’t Ford be able to feel it?

“And — ” His voice splits in two when he tries to speak. He clears his throat and tries again. “And Stanley? Have you — have you heard from him lately?”

HIs mother grows quiet on the other line. In all the years since Stanley’s disownment, Ford has never once willingly brought up his brother. Talking about Stanley would inevitably bring up fond memories of their childhood, which would only sour at the memory of what Stanley had been willing to do to him, and Ford would be forced to wrestle once again with the devastating realization that he had cared for his brother more than his brother had cared for him .

More than once in their childhood, a fellow student had approached Ford with an offer of friendship. It had only been after the initial feelings of relief and joy settled in that he’d realized they were laughing at him behind his back, that it was a game of some sort to say kind words to the freak with six fingers and an obsession with the weird but never truly mean them. Stanley had been a friend he’d taken for granted. He’d felt safe knowing there was at least one person in the world who would always understand him—who would always  _ want _ to.

But Stanley had been no different than the others. 

He’d offered his kind words and betrayed Ford when his back was turned. He’d sold him on lies of support and love only to revoke them when it impeded what he wanted, and Ford had been utterly unprepared for it. 

Ten years later and he still can’t make sense of that betrayal or the hurt that followed. At some point, he’d decided it wasn’t worth trying to make sense of it anymore; it was easier to box up the memories and the emotions and everything connected to Stanley and bury them down deep within his ribcage where they’d never again be touched.

After being buried so deep for so long, it hurts to bring them to the surface, as if he’s pulling out all the stitches on a fresh wound so it sits gaping and exposed.

“No,” his mother says slowly. “Not for a while. Did you —Ford, honey, were you planning to reach out to him?”

“No,” Ford says quickly. He shoves the lid closed on the emotions and pushes them quickly back into the dirt before they can claw themselves free. “No, I—I was just checking.”

“Ford,” his mother says gently. “It’s been ten years.”

“I’m sorry, Ma, but I have a lot of work to do. I need to go.”

“Stanford—” his mother tries, but he slams the phone back down before she can get another word in. 

He would feel it, he tells himself stubbornly. Deep in the part of him where that buried box sits, he would know if Stanley died.

* * *

When he dreams that night, it’s of that swingset near the beach where he and Stanley had spent so much time growing up. Privately, Ford still thinks of it as their swingset, as much of a refuge and a home away from home as the Stan o’ War had been. Sometimes it had been easier to bear his heart sitting side by side with Stanley on those swings than it had been in their family’s apartment, the weight of their father’s disapproval and expectations and the family’s money troubles filling the air like smog.

Thinking about the Stan o’ War leaves a bitter taste in his mouth these days, but somehow the image of that swingset and the feeling of safety it brought is still perfectly preserved in his mind, miraculously untouched by his fallout with Stanely. Occasionally, he’ll see these swingsets floating along the edges of his dreamscape on his nights with Bill. Rarely, but more than he cares to admit, he will dream of himself sitting in them. 

On nights like tonight when his thoughts of Stanley are too close and too stubborn to process any other way, Ford finds himself on the swingset, hands clenched tightly around the weathered chainlinks. 

He’s much taller than he was the last time he sat in this swing, but his subconscious must have adjusted the size to match his adult height, because his feet don’t reach the ground. He kicks them absentmindedly through the air, letting himself sway.

“Sixer! Hey, Sixer!” 

Ford turns to see Stanley swinging beside him. He’s young, no older than eight, his curly hair wild and untouched by the pomade he started using once they hit high school. There’s a fading bruise on one of his arms and a bandaid stretched across one elbow, as there so often was. He’s smiling brightly at Ford, kicking his legs vigorously to push himself higher and higher.

“Watch me jump!” he shouts.

“You’ll hurt yourself,” Ford says without thinking.

Stanley laughs. “I won’t hurt myself!” 

And before Ford can say another word, he jumps, flying free of the swing and out into the open air. And he falls, faster than he expects, the fear overtaking the joy on his young features, snuffing it out like a candle in a drafty hallway, and Ford’s heart plummets as he watches Stanley gasp, fighting against gravity, trying to slow his descent. But he can’t, and he falls faster, further than should be possible, the ground opening up beneath him to swallow him whole, and Ford’s breath stutters in his throat. 

“Ford!” Stanley shouts, face twisted with terror. “Ford, help me!”

Ford tries to yell his brother’s name, but it catches in his throat, sticking fast. He tries to reach out an arm to catch him but finds that his whole body is frozen in place, and he’s helpless to do anything but watch as Stanley disappears into the darkness surrounding the swingset, fading away until nothing remains of him but his echoing scream. It lingers in Ford’s ears, then rises in pitch until it becomes the banshee’s wails, and suddenly she’s there before him. 

She hovers in mid-air, pale and gaunt, corpse-like. Her red-rimmed eyes are sunken in her sallow skin, her drawn cheeks lined with tear tracks. She lifts one thin arm, outstretches one bony finger, and points directly at him, and Ford can’t breathe, struck motionless with terror at the sight of the death omen before him. 

When she opens her mouth, it stretches far wider than any human mouth could, and from it pours a scream so loud it rattles his very bones, shaking apart his ribcage until the box where his emotions lay buried tears free.

He feels the tears on his cheeks before he registers that he’s crying, chokes on mouthfuls of desperate air before he knows he’s sobbing, the emotion bursting free of him and raging with all the power and fury of an ocean storm. 

“Stanley!” Ford cries. His eyes roam the black for any sign of his brother, but it’s as if he was never there at all, scrubbed free from existence, scribbled out like the note in the inside cover of Ford’s book. He longs to stand and wade out into the black to search it’s depths, but his body refuses to move. His hands tighten around the chainlinks. “LEE!”

In an instant, the scene changes. The black fades away, leaving cracked asphalt riddled with weeds and grass in its place, just as it had looked during his childhood. The sound of gentle waves replaces the banshee’s wails. Ford clings to the comforting sound, taking deep breaths in time with the tide to get himself under control.

“Wow. That nightmare was a doozy.”

Ford turns his head. Bill is hovering above the swing that should be Stanley’s. The color seems to leach out of the scene directly around him, as if the memory of this place can’t account for his presence.

“You alright, Sixer?”

Embarrassed, Ford quickly scrubs a hand across his face to clear away the evidence of his breakdown. He nods, not sure he can trust his voice to answer. He can feel a blush blooming on his cheeks, and the shame that washes over him is as hot and thick as tar. It’s not the first nightmare Bill has wandered into, but the feeling of humiliation is just as strong as it ever is at the thought of someone as powerful as his muse seeing his weaknesses laid out so plainly.

“Ah, don’t sweat it, brainiac,” Bill says. “You can’t help that all you humans are weak and full of emotions.” 

The shame grows. Ford knows Bill doesn’t mean it as an insult, but it lands like one anyways. He wants to be as dictated by logic and reasoning as his muse is, yet his inherent human weaknesses still have far too much power over him. He takes a deep breath and wills his heart to settle.

“Is this still about that banshee?”

Ford ducks his head at the judgment in Bill’s tone. He knows it’s foolish, insulting even, to doubt what Bill told him, but he can’t seem to help it. The fears keep bubbling up in him without his permission, and if he doesn’t let them free, he thinks they might just explode out of him anyways.

“I know,” he says quickly, feeling very much like a scolded child trying to defend themselves, “that you said the banshee is here for me, and I trust you, but —” He hesitates.

“But?” Bill prompts. His eye narrows; despite the lack of features, it still manages to give off the impression of scowling. Ford shrinks under his gaze.

“Could you be wrong?” The words slip free before he can pull them back. He regrets them the minute they leave his tongue.

The dreamscape around them darkens. At Ford’s feet, the weeds and grass poking up through the asphalt brown and wilt. Bill’s displeasure is a physical presence, pushing out into the dream around him and warping it, leaching the color until everything but Ford is cast in greyscale. It hits him like a winter wind, sharp and biting, like his father’s displeasure doubled and doubled upon itself until he can hardly breathe beneath its weight.

He has never felt so foolish. He has never felt so scared, horrified to think he might lose Bill’s mentorship, his friendship, his approval all in one go because he let his foolish human emotions take control of him. If he isn’t Bill’s favorite, his chosen mind this century, then what is he? Nothing but an unwanted freak cast out and laughed at by the world.

“I didn’t mean,” he scrambles to backtrack, unable to meet that single, narrowed eye locked on him, “to insult you. I’m sorry. I know you’re not wrong. But—I just—no one has heard from Stanley in a while. I’m worried.”

Slowly, Bill’s displeasure eases, releasing the dream from it’s grasp. The color returns. Ford feels like he can breathe again.

“Why’s it matter if he’s kicked the bucket?” Bill asks. “Thought you didn’t want him in your life anyways.”

“I don’t want him to die,” Ford gasps out, and he finds it’s all he can manage, his thoughts and emotions too tangled to make more sense of them than that one single thought.

Stanley’s young face floats into his mind, the way it had looked as he’d realized he was falling, reaching out desperately for a Ford who could not save him. The memory sits heavy on his chest, crushing his lungs.

“Could you—” he starts, then stops, swallowing the words. He’s already insulted his muse once this dream; best not to ask too much of him. 

“Can I what?”

Ford swallows. He steels himself. He looks Bill in the eye and prays to a higher power he no longer believes in that he isn’t asking too much. “You can see everything. Could you check that he’s okay?”

“I  _ can _ see everything,” Bill agrees. He debates for a moment, swinging his cane through the air. “Sure, Sixer. I can check on him. Just because I like you so much.”

And then he’s gone. Ford heaves a great sigh of relief, sinking into his swing.

Within seconds, Bill is back.

“Good news and bad news, kiddo,” he says. “Your brother’s fine—living it up in Vegas. And he doesn’t look like he misses you at all.”

It’s odd the feeling that comes over him at the news, pure relief and debilitating grief fighting for prominence, neither quite able to cancel the other out. It’s what Ford had expected, what he had always imagined of his brother’s life, and yet somehow it hits him like an ugly, unexpected surprise. Just as he had always known, just as he had always secretly feared, his brother is just fine without him. Happy, probably.

He had wasted his time with worry.

For the second time that night, Ford feels like a fool.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. All his energy drains away. He feels like nothing more than an empty shell without it, barely able to keep himself upright. He thinks he’d quite like to curl up and sleep for several thousand years, but he knows it isn’t possible. 

“Hey, chin up, Fordsie! You don’t need him! You have me! And together we’re gonna change the world and show your brother what he’s been missing out on.”

For the first time since Bill entered his life, Ford can’t muster up any pride or excitement at the thought. Changing the world seems suddenly weightless in the face of his brother’s hatred and the confirmation that without his muse he is just as alone, unloved, and unwanted as the world has proved to him time and time again. How soon until Fiddleford has enough of him and returns to his family? How soon until what remains of his own tires of him too?

Such thoughts are almost too unwieldy to bury, but he manages, then listens dutifully as Bill outlines the next step for the portal.

* * *

There are a number of negative effects to Bill piloting Ford’s body, which he discovers slowly and with a growing sense of dread. It is disorienting, he finds, waking in a place different than the one he had fallen asleep in, made worse by the fact that Bill seems completely ignorant to the concepts of both rest and comfort. Ford is no stranger to waking up with an aching neck and back; he’s fallen asleep so many times hunched over his desk that the idea of waking up without aches and pains is almost foreign to him. But now he finds himself, more often than not, waking up on the cold concrete floor of the basement. Sometimes he even wakes with bruises, as if Bill had just released his body where it stood once done with it and let it fall, gracelessly, to the floor. 

He can’t expect a non-human being, one without even a physical body, to understand how to maintain his. Such injuries and carelessness are surely to be expected—a sort of cultural difference—and he can’t fault Bill for his body’s own inherent limitations. Unfortunately, this applies to more than just minor aches and bruises. Often, Bill seems to forget that human hands are not durable enough to handle hot surfaces, but Ford is hesitant to remind him so soon after his last accidental insult.

He can’t risk Bill leaving. He can’t risk him deciding Ford is uncooperative and turning his attention to another.

So in the mornings, he rubs the aches and pains away, applies salve to the minor burns, and attempts to shake away the feeling that Bill always leaves behind. It’s like a bad aftertaste, bitter and repugnant, but buried within his very skin so deeply that no scrubbing or scratching can alleviate it. It puts him on edge in a way he can’t quite express. 

On top of the aches, he feels utterly exhausted. With Bill puppeteering his body each night, Ford has to wonder if it ever truly has time to rest. It certainly doesn’t feel like it does. He wakes each morning feeling more tired than the night before, and Fiddleford is starting to attempt to put limitations on his caffeine intake out of supposed worry for Ford’s safety.

He wishes his friend could understand that he’s fine. Tired, sore, and never comfortable, but  _ fine _ . Besides, it will only last until the portal is complete, and Bill promises that they are creeping ever closer to that deadline. Every person who has changed the world suffered and sacrificed for their achievements; Ford can forsake a bit of sleep and comfort for his own. 

Still, it’s particularly hard to wake himself this morning. His body aches—from cold this time, he believes. Oregon is creeping steadily into winter, and the basement rarely reaches a pleasant temperature anymore. He’d had to rub feeling back into his fingers this morning, resolving to bring it up with Bill next time they meet in his dreamscape. It won’t be much help to either of them if frostbite sets in.

Coffee is losing its effectiveness. Ford downs two cups with little effect, before stumbling to the bathroom to wash his face. Luckily, the water does a far better job of shocking him awake. It’s frigid as it hits his face, sending goosebumps down his arms.

He glances up at his reflection in the mirror as he reaches for a towel.

Stanley stares back at him.

If the water hadn’t woken him, the shock would have done the job. His heart jolts in his chest as if he’s touched a live wire, the shockwave buzzing through his skin like trapped energy, and for a brief moment, he stops breathing entirely.

And then he wants to laugh at himself, because of course he’d see Stanley in his reflection—such is the nature of identical twins, after all. In the years since high school, Ford has grown taller and put on weight—a fair bit of it sturdy muscle gained from years spent hiking the forests and cliffs of Gravity Falls. He doesn’t know what Stanley looks like after all these years, but he’d wager a bet that they look more similar now than they had when they’d parted.

Of course he’d share his reflection with his brother. They have the same features, the same eyes, the same frizzy, uncontrollable brown curls, the same—

He blinks, leaning in closer to study the mirror better.

On the bridge of his nose, there’s a faint, nearly invisible scar.

A scar that Ford knows he doesn’t have.

But Stanley does.

Ford scrambles backwards, slamming into the cabinet behind him with so much force that he hears pill containers and jars crashing and rolling within the shelves. The image of his brother doesn’t move, no longer a reflection but a spectre, stone-faced and cold. The stare he gives Ford is heavy; he feels it fall upon his shoulders and finds he can not move beneath the weight of it.

Stanley’s eyes are full of a contempt he doesn’t deserve, a judgement that isn’t fair, and that’s all it takes for the fear to shift into anger.

Ford storms forward. He grabs the porcelain sink with both hands and props his weight on it to keep himself steady. He leans in close to the mirror and hisses, “I don’t need you,” with as much hatred as he can manage, wishing the words would find their way to his real brother, wherever he is, and crawl into his ears. And yet he knows how little Stanley would care and feels all the more miserable with the thought. 

He blinks rapidly to push back the sudden onslaught of loss and abandonment trying desperately to make itself known. 

Within one blink and the next, the reflection changes. The scar disappears. It's Ford’s own face staring back at him, as it must have always been. He’s seeing things, a hearty combination of stress and exhaustion twisting his own vision into his worst fears, latching onto the thing that has flooded his thoughts as of late and throwing it in his face.

He scrubs his face as if he can clear the last few minutes away. 

There is one positive of Bill wearing his skin, at least. He hasn’t been awake to hear the banshee crying for several days now. Perhaps with enough time, he’ll forget she’s there at all and his brother along with her. 

* * *

Several terrible things happen in such quick succession that it leaves Ford completely unbalanced, adrift in a turbulent sea.

Fiddleford nearly goes through the portal.

Fiddleford storms out in anger, turning his back on him completely.

Ford discovers that Bill is a liar, and that his own idiotic, easily misled hands have nearly brought about his own world’s destruction.

It is the last realization that holds him captive, catching in his mind like a scratched record, looping and looping endlessly. 

Bill is a  _ liar _ .

Every praise was a lie. Every promise, a lie. Every word and every plan and every outstretched hand of friendship an absolute, awful, sinister, smiling  _ lie _ . 

Ford has never felt so foolish. He has never felt so ashamed. It makes a home in his ribcage, gnawing at him, eating him from the inside out. For the first time in years, he sees the veil torn free at last to reveal the bitter, ugly truth: Ford is a monstrous thing, so easily led astray by his own pride that he nearly doomed the entire world in his search of glory.

He has never hated himself so much, and he has hated himself often.

Is it really such a wonder that everyone leaves and betrays him?

His house looms large and frightening in the aftermath, filled with monuments he would tear to pieces with his very own fingers if he only felt strong enough. Every shadow seems to taunt him as he passes, every single blueprint seems to laugh and jeer. He paces deep circles into his floorboards, unable to sit still, unable to rest—unable, also, to think of a solution. 

Time loses meaning, passing by too quickly and too slowly all at once. Night falls outside without his knowledge. And, as she has done for the past several weeks, the banshee takes up her post and begins her wailing.

It is an awful sound. He doesn’t think that he has ever truly grasped how awful a sound it is, high-pitched and cacophonous, rising and falling like turbulent ocean waves. It pierces through the walls of his cabin and bombards him with the sheer weight of depthless agony, a grief so thick it’s tangible, flaying him apart like blows upon his skin.

The thought comes quickly. It comes powerfully. And Ford is utterly unable to bury it.

Bill had promised him that Stanley was alive. But Bill is a liar, and not one word of his can be trusted. 

Ford moves before he realizes it, storming out into the cold without even pausing to pull boots on. The snow soaks into his thin socks and numbs his toes, but he hardly feels it.

The banshee sits at the edge of the property line, hunched over and keening. She’s almost pale enough to disappear into the snow around her. Only her red-rimmed eyes and wide open mouth stand out amongst the white. She does not raise her head as he nears, nor does she stop crying, and the sound claws painfully at his ears.

“Why are you here?” Ford demands, yelling to be heard over her cries. “Is it Stanley?” he gasps, voice cracking on his brother’s name. “Has something happened to him?”

The question hurts to voice. It drags the lid off the box in his ribcage as it leaves, and in its wake, the emotions and the memories and all the things tied to Stanley burst free. They fill him like a raging tempest, buffeting his insides with violent winds and deadly white-caps, which crash against his lungs, leaving him heaving and breathless. 

“Are you here to tell me that he’s dead?” Ford wails. Saltwater spills over his cheeks as the tempest pours free. 

The banshee looks up and locks those awful, red-rimmed eyes on his. She opens her mouth and screams.

Something snaps inside of him. Perhaps it is the paper-thin bit of control and calm he’s managed to cling to since learning of Bill’s betrayal. It shrivels and dies, and he shakes apart with it. 

He opens his mouth and screams back. The noise rivals her own wails, drowning them out in a sea of hurt and fear and anger and a grief so deep it seems endless.

“There!” he screams. “How do you like it?!” He reaches a hand up and buries it in his wild hair, tugging hard enough to strain the roots. “Why can’t you just tell me what you’re here for?” The screams dissolve into sobs, saltwater flooding his throat as he tries to speak. “What good of a death omen are you if I can’t understand what you’re foreboding?”

The banshee buries her face back in her hands. She gives him no answer beyond her cries. 

He fears that it’s answer enough.

* * *

Ford gets an address from his mother. He does not tell her why he wants it.

On a postcard, he pens a desperate plea in a shaky hand and sends it off with the last shred of stubborn hope he still has. A week passes, and Stanley does not show.

Ford waits. He paces the hallways of his home. He paces the yard outside, as if it will help him better see his brother’s arrival. He drinks every last ounce of coffee in his house, turns the heating off, and pinches the skin of his hands and arms to stave off the thing he’s let inside his body.

Some point after the postcard is mailed, the banshee finally abandons her post, disappearing without a sound as if she was never there at all.

One week fades into two, then two into three, until Ford loses track completely of how long it has been since the letter was mailed.

Stanley never comes. 

The tempest continues to rage inside of him.

It drowns Ford within its depths.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be perfectly honest - I lost a bit of steam on this one towards the end, but I really wanted to finish it and put it out there for Forduary anyways.
> 
> Also, wanted to make it clear that when Ford is thinking terrible thoughts about himself there at the end it's his own self-hatred speaking, definitely NOT my view of him. 
> 
> Also also, in lore, banshees only appear to certain Irish families, but let's just say that one ended up in Gravity Falls due to the weirdness magnetization and decided to just lament the deaths of any families in the area.


End file.
